045 Power Initialization

Paz’s idea of a training ground was a small swamp sequestered in Dreadwood about a day’s walk away from Skeelie.

We’d gathered our meager possessions and struck out at midnight, an hour when even the most daring adventurers retreated to their chambers. Paz’s eyesight worked fine in the dark, as did mine. But, Nicola had to rely on her [Eldritch Eyeball] technique.

Paz had given two reasons for his hour of choice.

Firstly, we couldn’t rule out the chance that Byron would try to assassinate us before the festival. The less attention we drew on our way out of Skeelie, the better.

And, secondly: a smattering of violent deaths tended to occur outside the city in the days leading up to the festival.

We needed to leave Skeelie before the roads became populated with ambushers looking for a quick level-up. And, what quicker way was there to level up than killing fellow rankers?

“There’s more to it than that,” Nicola had said, as we journeyed through a pitch-black Dreadwood. “A good number of the competing adventurers trickle into Skeelie weeks before the registrations begin. By the time Ezin opens the board, these rankers have since turned restless and feel like they’ve missed out on valuable time for preparation.”

“Causing a lot of them,” I inferred, “to go searching for spawn points at the same time.”

“Exactly. It’s less about premeditated murder and more about brutal battles over limited resources. Rankers might offer more XP than equivalent monsters, but they are tenacious and incredibly difficult to kill. A fight between rankers can easily go either way.”

She had paused as something large trudged past the forest in the distance. Something humongous. Paz tried to get us to engage, but a tentacle from Nicola kept him in his place.

We resumed our journey some long minutes later when we were sure the worst had passed.

“It doesn’t help,” Nicola had continued, “that the governor withdraws half the border patrol during times like these to help secure the city. It leaves a lot of frazzled adventurers roaming without oversight. The only way to avoid that imbroglio is to stay in the city or ignore the shallow resources near the walls and dive deeper into Dreadwood. People who do that sometimes go in search of the wild god’s pets.”

“That’s not what we’re doing, right?” I'd asked. “Going after the wild god’s pets?”

Paz looked back at me and laughed.

The swamp he led us to wasn’t much better than fighting fell beasts. It stank with the smell of mulch, stale water, and rotten carcasses. The soil squelched beneath our feet, and the humid air featured flies, mosquitoes, and all things unpleasant.

Nicola inspected the bottom of her boots with a curled lip, then swiped at a mosquito that buzzed past her ear. “Why did you bring us here?!”

“Because,” Paz said, “this is the best place to get our levels up without attracting attention. Trust me, I found it while traversing Dreadwood. Monsters even avoid the swamp because of its condition.”

“If monsters are too scared to come here, how do we kill them?”

“Quiet. Let’s settle down to sleep for now. I know a good place.”

Paz led us into a small cave, obscured by wild brambles. We trudged into the roomy interior, which stood surprisingly clean, as though prepared beforehand. A single bedroll occupied one corner of the cave, and a hearth stood near the far end alongside an empty cooking pot.

“You lived here?” I asked.

“For a while,” Paz said, hooking a core lamp to one face of the wall. “Feel free to sleep in any corner you want. We can go grinding after we wake.”

We retrieved blankets from our inventories, and a bedroll in Nicola’s case. Then, without further ado, we drifted off to sleep.

The swamp still looked as bad as I’d imagined the next morning. But, with daylight out in full force, I could properly examine my surroundings.

The majority of the ground was soft and wet, but the huge trees provided excellent cover, and a small region of stony earth made for a good place to rest and unwind in the shade.

Paz led us to that region which featured several rocks as though a small hill had been obliterated with several kilotons of TNT. Large boulders lay scattered across the landscape, creating a view that was at once both ominous and intriguing.

Wait a minute . . . I recognized these boulders . . .

“This will be the site of our training,” Paz said, turning to face us. “I fought here myself a few weeks back.”

I looked around the clearing. “Paz, are these Rock Lurkers?”

Paz’s jaw dropped in surprise. “You know what these are?”

“Wait, Rock Lurkers?” Nicola said. “Are you kidding me? Did you bring us this far out to fight Rock Lurkers? Aren’t those monsters firmly in regular territory?”

She wasn’t wrong. Using my discernment skill, I could see that none of the boulders around us stood greater than level 10. How the heck were these supposed to help us improve?

“Calm down,” Paz said, making a placating gesture. “I’m not stupid, you know? Among the regular spawns of Dreadwood, Rock Lurkers are the best of the bunch.”

Nicola and I glanced at each other at the part he said he wasn’t stupid.

“Oh, fuck you,” Paz said.

Nicola chuckled. “Look, it doesn’t matter how tough the Rock Lurkers are. At my current level, I’d need to kill over two hundred of them single-handedly to advance by a single point. That’s rather inefficient.”

“It is. But, I wouldn’t have brought you to this place if I didn’t think you’d gain something out of it. Let’s just take care of these suckers first, okay? You’ll understand once we begin.”

Nicola turned to me with a look of pure exasperation. But, I offered a shrug, sighed, and got to grinding.

The Rock Lurkers didn’t like that. The instant we got into proximity, a bunch of the monsters rose and barreled toward us.

The first Rock Lurker I’d faced had an exterior as hard as a diamond, and these were no different. We spent an entire day dodging around boulders and trying to snipe them in the mouth.

We used potions when we could, but there was no getting around the six-hour cooldowns. We managed to slay about thirty Rock Lurkers between us before we were forced to call it a day.

My arms felt like lead.

After some rest and [Meditation], Paz invited me to sparring practice.

“Sparring?” I asked as he led me down a mucky meadow. “Isn’t that kind of pointless?”

“What do you mean?”

“I have a skill that grants expertise with Rogue-type weapons. I don’t see what fighting with you can do to improve that within our limited time frame.”

“I have my [Polearm Mastery] too, but don’t be a blockhead. The fighting styles teach you how to swing a blade. Knowing when to swing one is an entirely different matter.”

“Sure it is. But, I’ll get stronger much faster by leveling up. We can save this exercise till after the festival.”

Paz ran his large hands through his hair. “Ugh. You’re exactly like I was back when I learned this lesson.” He pointed a finger at me. “Listen, all the fighting styles do is teach you how to move your body. Everything else: timing, tactics, and feints, comes from you.

“If weapon skills sharpen your muscle memory, then actual practice hones your decision-making. You’d need to balance both facets to avoid a bloody end.”

I’d noticed something similar in my first fight with the monkeys, but between the stress of fighting Rock Lurkers and the disappointment, I wasn’t sure I wanted to entertain Paz any further. “I still think this can wait until we’ve gotten our levels up.”

Paz growled. “Tell you what. If you manage to land three strikes on me in a martial arts-only contest, I’ll listen to reason and never ask this again.”

“You don’t have a weapon.”

“. . . leaving me at a disadvantage. Surely, tall, dark Damien can win against a Skirmisher who doesn’t own a polearm.”

“I’m two levels stronger than you, Paz.”

“And, your daddy’s a donkey. Are you going to keep making excuses or would you take this bet?”

I suppressed a retort because I was humble enough to see that Paz had a point. If I couldn’t beat him with all that [Knife-fighting] could bring to bear while he fought barehanded, then he had earned the right to teach me without being contested.

However, I had also seen his attributes. Paz’s stat points had been distributed heavily toward the physical, with a twenty in Strength and a ten in Dexterity. This wouldn’t be easy, no matter how much I burned to shut him up.

But . . . three strikes were doable, right? Between me and my dagger. I’d die of shame if I couldn’t manage that much.

“My kind of person,” Paz said with a laugh as I retrieved Nana’s heirloom from my inventory. He lifted his arms and settled into a stance.

I settled into one of my own, drawing on the wealth of knowledge available from [Knife-fighting]. It wasn’t a style built for head-on confrontations, but I didn’t intend to draw this out.

Paz inched forward with his leading palm opened in an imitation of a shield. I tensed in reaction, watching his movement.

He blitzed out of sight.

That fight constituted the most grilling ten minutes I had ever endured. By the time we were done, I sported a depleted health meter and two black eyes.

In contrast, I had only managed to tag Paz once.

Paz’s punches landed with the force of 20 Strength behind them, enough to make me realize how beefy Beelith had been to beat him.

I had considered myself a decent melee fighter—a notion I quickly discarded, thanks to the beatdown. Paz acted surprisingly gracious in victory, and he helped me up from the mud and into the cave.

Hours later, we devoured a pot of soup Nicola had prepared.

Paz grinned at me from across the cave, finally ready to talk smack. “Sorry for humiliating you back there. Wanna go again tomorrow?”

I growled into my soup. “Bet.”